Baby!

Hey Flan,

In a pure fit of Auntly necessity, I purchased a plane ticket and flew to observe the tiny creature The Brother and SIL produced. I can honestly say they've done quite an amazing job!

Here is my self portrait:

We were a little worried as LittleBabyGirl was not putting on weight, however, she seems to have gotten over that and we are all very excited. Here is a stretched out shot of the string bean:As I had never visited our nation's capital, The Brother and I left LittleBabyGirl with her mother and grandmother and did a little bit of drive-by tourism. We observed the Washington Monument through the Mini's moon roof.
I took a picture of the IRS building out of spite.

Finally, we went by the White House. It looks just like it does on The West Wing, only without Toby, Josh, CJ, Leo & Charlie (sad).
The Brother and SIL left me to babysit! Can you believe it?!?! This was after I informed them I would be the Auntie that would teach her all kinds of inappropriate phrases. They had lots of faith in their daughter not to listen and she slept practically the whole time.
Isn't she precious?!??! I'm so smitten.

A post script on the first photo here and on her announcement photo:

The pink flower hat was from "Itty Bitty Hats"- an excellent book that everyone should buy immediately. I've knit practically half the book for LittleBabyGirl already. I had some pink alpaca whose yarn label is long gone (I believe the phrase "catalina" was on their somewhere, it's worsted wt). I made the smallest size.

The purple one above is from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts". I used an Australian yarn called "Heirloom". It's their cotton and I did it on 6s.

With baby hats I pretty much don't check gauge, which is unusual for me. Most of the time I am extremely paranoid trying to get the numbers to come out just so, but with baby hats I simply can't be bothered. For her, I've been making the smallest sizes (which are still far too big) in whatever needle size is recommended and whatever yarn happens to be lying around. Thankfully, so far she hasn't seemed to mind.

I made the Hat...

... They made the BABY!
Little Baby Girl is HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Future Niece is now HERE Niece!!!!
Little Baby showed up yesterday morning.


Isn't she beautiful and perfect and EVERYTHING!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm thrilled to bits to be an Auntie and want to knit her even more. Thank goodness she was born during a cold season.

Flan's Turn to Catch Up

Kathleen-
Apparently April isn't a good month for blogging for me, since I just checked, and I last posted in March! I've got no news as exciting as yours (an AUNTIE!), but here's a sampling of the past few weeks:

Lots of work...but when I wasn't working, I knitted:

• Central Park (non)Hoodie: Sleeves done, body done, button bands knit. 1 sleeve set in, the other partially set in. Collar (no hood for me!) stitches picked up, but I decided that I couldn't figure out the appropriate length of the collar till the sleeves were fully set in,
• Baby Soft Cardigan (times 2!). One for Harmony is cast on and I'm working on the first front. I'm about to cast on for a second one (for Elizabeth, the beautiful daughter of K&B), and I'm going to try knitting the body in one piece.
  
• Monkey Socks: ripped out! Wrong size! I haven't decided what to do next.
  
• All other projects: Untouched due to all the work.

So in the past month, we went to Iowa to see Mike's cousin play hockey:
And the mascot rode a unicycle on the ice:


We went to the Minnesota zoo, and saw the dolphin show:


And I got my picture taken with a (brass) tiger family:

And a brand new (less than a week old), baby camel:


And spring came to my garden!



I'm plotting my next adult sweater project- I'm thinking Sunrise Circle Jacket (which, for those who don't know, is a limited time free download from Interweave as one of the 5 Reader's Choice patterns), in some lovely Burgundy Cascade 220.

I'm also plotting Mike's kilt hose. I've swatched the stockinette, and now need to swatch the cable pattern....

I'm terribly behind on the ABCalong, since I still need D, E, F, G, H, and now I!

How to Make Your Sister's Heart Stop

Hey Flan,

As I told you via email- I'm going to be an Auntie! Here's how I found out:

I was at work as I usually am on Wednesday nights. When on the way out of work I noticed there were TWO missed calls from The Brother as well as a voicemail that said "call me NOW." I started seriously freaking out. Our parents were visiting him and I couldn't remember if they were flying out that night (hence potential plane crash senarios) or the next day (hence potential car crash senarios).

When he answered his phone I demanded "what is going on?" He countered with "What are your plans for Christmas?"

Thinking one, the other or both of our parents had met with some unspeakably terrible fate and then be asked about our plans for the holidays threw me just a bit. After I ascertained that all parents were fine he said I was going to be an Auntie at Thanksgiving. Whew.

MAN- I tell you I can work up a really good freak out in no time. If anyone out there ever needs emergency preparedness senarios to practice they should just call me up. Also, I'm extremely prepared in case of natural disaster.

Back to the story, the conversation with him mostly consisted of "Ohmygoodness!" followed by "stork! stork! stork!" I then called The Mommy who didn't answer and then The Sister and our entire conversation was the two above sentiments along with "I know!"

The Mommy then called back and I had the "ohmygoodness!" "I know!" conversation all over again. Anyway, we're all very excited about the 15mm peanut and this Christmas might be spent fawning over a month old infant.

I told them not to worry about names yet but that they could name it after me if they wanted to.

What to do when finding out that there's going to be a baby born in WINTER (most favorite knitterly season?) buy some YARN. The WEBS sale is seriously hurting my bank account. I bought some beautiful pewter blue Jaeger cotton and I already have a bunch of bright pink, though I'll probably use the blue regardless of gender.

There has been stunning progress on the CPH and it is almost complete! I am down to the final ribbing. However, I seem to be having more problems then usual with picking up stitches. I picked up every other one and ended up with 94 per side instead of 146. Then I picked up almost every one and have 157. Next time I'm going to carefully measure, put markers in and attempt 73 per quarter. Oh! I am loving how the sleeves turned out. Like I said, I reverse engineered the sleeve caps and then knit them in the round to the wrist. I seamed them in last night and they look pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I was a little worried about whether or not they'd fit. Hope yours is going well.